john 20 revisited

at house church this sunday night we read john 20, the story of when mary magdalene and the disciples encountered the empty tomb after jesus was resurrected.

the discussion we had was great. we asked questions like "what exactly did john believe in v.8 if v.9 says they did not yet understand"? "why did mary not recognize him at first in v.14?" " was jesus hispanic?" (mary though he was the gardener in v.15. LOL. ooooo, i'm gonna get it for posting that one!)

good stuff.

anyways, i have a new question for everyone. one that i have been thinking about for the last few days.

"why just mary?" in other words, why didn't the disciples go with her initially? what about the other women? mary, jesus' mother? somebody?!

we talked a bit about how the disciples were still wanted men, so we can chalk them up to cowards or prudent depending on how you look at it, right? maybe.

momma mary might have been destroyed still at the death of her son and laying depressed in her bed alone, right? maybe.

here is what gets me. mary went alone. early in the morning...cold, dark. she may have walked a LONG way to the tomb. what exactly did she expect to do about the HUGE rock sitting in front of the tomb? was she going to ask the friendly roman guards to move it aside for her?

i can't get past how mary only cared about taking care of jesus' body. her love ran so deep that the fear and pain that she felt was set aside to perform a task that i can best describe as devastating.

mary makes me feel minute in my faith, even smaller in my ability to love. i KNOW that i would have been laid up with the disciples that day watching mary leave to do what she had to do. now, i also know that i would have won that sprint to the tomb when she came back to let everyone know that the body was gone, but nonetheless, my reaction would have been just that; a reaction.

jesus deserves so much more than reaction though. we cannot show our love and devotion with a reactive faith, but our faith must be pressing forward daily and actively seeking ways to know, love and serve him.

sometimes pressing forward means we do it alone, and we show up at the tomb alone. we might have walked a LONG way to get there in the dark, in the cold, not knowing how we're gonna move that rock when we get there.

but then again, we might just meet jesus there. :)

phil 3: 7-14 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.